August #2
Her shirt was the kind of silky that probably had to be handwashed. Her hair smelled of shampoo, citrusy and fresh. When she let go, I saw that she was wearing a sticky paper name badge printed with a red balloon that announced she was ‘Anna – Theo’s mum’.
She must have noticed me staring at it because she promptly picked it off and screwed it up into a ball. She tossed her head back as she explained she’d been at some god-awful children’s party – her words, not mine.
‘Anna, I’m sorry,’ I said, my eyes unexpectedly filling with tears.
‘Oh, don’t be,’ she replied, waving away my apology and looking taken aback. ‘You saved me. And Theo’s still there – my friend Maddie, whose daughter’s there too, said she’d take him – so that’s a few hours of free childcare.’
I gave a half-hearted laugh and scraped my hair back from my face. ‘I’m sorry about everything, Anna, not just today.’ I paused. ‘I wanted to tell you.’
‘But?’ She was still looking at me kindly, but her eyebrows had become knitted. As she waited for me to answer, one tooth started testing her bottom lip.
I closed my eyes, hoping that when I reopened them, the tears I could feel brimming would be less threatening. I was wrong, and as I told her that I was embarrassed, that I didn’t know how to explain it because it didn’t really make sense, even to me, they started to fall.
She took my hands in hers and looked at me. ‘You have nothing to be embarrassed about,’ she said. ‘I’m proud of you, for taking control, for following it through.’
A nurse joined us then. Clocking my damp cheeks, she told me not to worry. Turning to Anna, she added, with a sympathetic head tilt, ‘Her hormones will be all over the place for the next few days.’
Anna smiled, self-assured, and asked if she could take me home.
‘I should think so,’ replied the nurse, checking the clipboard at the end of my bed, then her watch. ‘Yes, it’s been long enough, and I see you’ve eaten your lunch,’ she said, her eyes skipping towards the plate on the bedside table, clean except for a few crumbs. ‘You’re good to go.’
Anna went to make a phone call while I pulled on that morning’s clothes. I was tying my laces, which I still did in the childlike way my mother had first taught me, when she came in and told me a taxi would be here in three minutes.
I felt something like comfort as I buckled myself in and rested my head against the leather seat. As we rolled over London Bridge, the Thames was glinting in the sun, its surface pixelated.
When we reached the other side, Anna turned to me and cautiously asked what all this meant for me and Noah. She knew as well as I did that he still had no desire to be a father. ‘Cathy, are you leaving him?’
My thoughts turned to my mother and whether she really had forgotten saying the same thing, except hers was framed as a piece of advice rather than a question.
Peggy had been sending me regular updates since she’d found the diary in the freezer, and as far as she was concerned my mother really had just been having a bad day.
In my head, I’d heard that same word, the one I hadn’t yet dared to say aloud.
I’d told her I wasn’t so sure it was an isolated incident, that there were other things my mother had said and done, other slip-ups.
She’d promised to continue to keep a close eye on her.
‘Cathy?’
My heart flickered inside my chest. When I tried to imagine my life without Noah, I felt hot and faint, as if I hadn’t eaten. I kept looking out of the window and, again, I tried not to cry and failed, just like I tried to ignore the cramps and the pad stuck to the crotch of my pants.
Anna made me a cup of tea and sat with me until Noah got home.
Gradually, the sedative wore off and my stomach, though still tender, began to feel closer to its usual self.
After being bloated for so long, the change should have been welcome.
Instead, I felt like my insides had been harvested.
Lying on the sofa that afternoon, I couldn’t shake the sense that I’d been stripped bare.
‘I know you don’t want to talk about it,’ said Anna, blowing at her tea, ‘but how has Noah taken it?’
I started stroking Tom, who was curled up beside me and promptly began to purr.
When I’d told Noah that animals could sense when humans needed comforting, he’d said that he could say the same thing about me – that I always seemed to know when something was bothering him.
It was, he’d said, one of his favourite things about me.
‘Cathy?’
I kept stroking as I started talking. ‘He didn’t want me to do it, not really, but he also didn’t want to stop me.
He helped with the injections, even though he said he wasn’t going to be involved.
He was supposed to pick me up today, but …
’ I was avoiding eye contact, keeping my gaze fixed on the way Tom’s black fur bled into white fur on his belly and feet.
I took a gentle hold of one of his tiny paws, which, underneath, were marbled with black and pink.
‘But what does this mean for you two as a couple?’ she asked.
As Tom stretched out all four legs and I started to scratch his back, the purring got louder. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, raising my voice over the hum. ‘I suppose we wait.’
‘Until you decide you can’t wait any longer?’
‘That might never happen.’
‘And if it does?’
The sound of my phone vibrating on the table saved me from having to answer.
The results and Noah arrived at exactly the same time.
‘Hi, how are you—’
I turned around and Noah saw that I was on the phone.
He mouthed an apology, then went to hug Anna hello.
‘Ten eggs fit for freezing,’ said Doctor Day, with a lilt that told me there was hope.
I wasn’t sure how to respond, other than to thank him.
I half listened as he talked me through the next steps, while also half listening to Noah and Anna’s hushed voices – because I was on the phone or because they didn’t want me to hear?
I turned my back on them and dug my nails into the palm of my hand, telling myself to get a grip.
‘All good?’ asked Doctor Day.
‘All good,’ I repeated. ‘Thank you again.’
As I hung up, their hushed voices broke off. I returned my phone to the table, and Anna reached for her bag.
‘You don’t have to go,’ I said, refilling the kettle as if to tempt her with more tea. ‘Stay.’
‘I would, but I can’t,’ she said, reaching around inside her bag for her own phone and checking her messages. ‘Maddie will be leaving soon, and I don’t want to be judged by the other mums …’
Other mums. It was like the words sucked all the air out of the room in one quick sweep.
She clamped her lips together to prevent any other comments about the club called motherhood from spilling out.
The three of us stood there, not talking, then Noah walked towards her and gave her another hug. ‘Thanks for coming to the rescue.’
Later, I would blame what I said next on the hormones : ‘Yes, it’s good to know I have someone I can depend on.’
‘Cathy.’ As he said it, his eyebrows bent into a frown.
I realised it wasn’t Noah I was frustrated with, not really. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, first to him and then to her. ‘Thanks for being here, Anna.’
She smiled. ‘Always.’
After she’d left, the flat felt smaller somehow.
I walked towards the window and watched her look both ways before crossing the road and continuing around the corner to the overground.
It was still light out, the sun filtering through faint clouds.
Come evening, people would be strewn across London Fields, sitting on summer jackets and picnic rugs, sipping from cans.
‘So,’ said Noah, ‘how did it go?’
‘It went well,’ I said, turning around and leaning back against the radiator, which always lost a lot of its heat to the window above during winter. ‘The doctor thinks we have a good chance.’
Noah didn’t react to my use of the word ‘we’, and I pretended I hadn’t planted it there just to see if he would. Instead, he suggested we have a drink : ‘Negroni?’ His favourite.
The kettle, which I’d filled to the rim, had finally boiled.
‘Yes, let’s.’
He grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl while I opened the freezer in search of ice.
As I pulled at each drawer, I couldn’t help picturing my eggs, three to a straw, in a tank along with thousands of others.
Frozen, glass-like, in a storage room with no natural light.
I wondered if the tanks were locked up and clearly labelled.
What if there was a mix-up? Goosebumps pricked up on my forearms, and Noah must have noticed.
At last, he hugged me too, just once, but we stayed that way for some time, our bodies pressed together, moving without music.
I experienced a shift inside me after my abortion.
Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I felt the scratch of anxiety, a tiny coil enmeshed in my skin.
I knew I’d done the right thing – I wasn’t in any doubt – but at the same time I couldn’t shake the sense that I’d knowingly destroyed a part of me.
At night I would lie in bed, the sheets soaking up my cold sweats.
When I passed a pregnant woman on the street, I would squeeze my eyes shut.
Just occasionally I would catch myself believing that I, too, was still pregnant.
My mind was clouded with melancholy like a glass of water swirled up with ink.
At some point, I suppose, the clouds cleared.